Books: Naughty Old New York

A grafting police chief named "Slogger" Williams christened the area in
the 1880s: "I've been living on rump steak long enough. Now I'll have
some tenderloin." The Tenderloin contained all that was gaudiest,
naughtiest, richest and most crooked in wide-open Gay Nineties New
York. Bounded by Manhattan's 14th
Street on the south, 42nd Street on the north, Fourth Avenue on the east
and North River on the west, it sported theaters, brothels, lordly
hotels, the Met, Delmonico's and the Tenderloin Club ("Check your
Morals with the Blonde at the Door"). This novel from the...